Gennaro recounts eight-year fight to pass Tobacco 21
Gennaro says Tobacco 21 took eight years and was opposed by major health groups before it became national policy. He says the episode shows the value of standing up to powerful industries.
Oh, thank you very much.
I do appreciate that.
I just need a...
I know we have to move along, but you mentioned Tobacco 21.
I started Tobacco 21 in 2005, and it took us eight years to get it done.
By 2013 when I was term limited out the first time, right at the end, we got it in and we got it passed.
And the reason why it took eight years to get it passed because it was adamantly opposed, raising the age to buy cigarettes.
It was adamantly opposed by the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society.
They testified vehemently against it, saying that raising the age would make tobacco more taboo and therefore more alluring for people to have because it was, like, forbidden.
Because no one else had done it, so we had no data to work off.
And so...
I worked with those organizations, and no one would go for it because, like, you know, these big health entities were against the bill.
And I said, look, well, let's just try it for, like, a year or two, and then if the data comes back bad and smoking goes up, we'll sunset the bill, you know.
They didn't want to go for that.
And so we got it passed over their opposition.
And then the data started pouring in.
Teen smoking rates plummeted.
And then every jurisdiction in the country went to school on us on that it really was a good idea to do that in 2000.
No, 2020 it became, passed in 2013, became national policy, you know, federal policy in 2020.
And the only shame is that the fact that had we done it eight years earlier, so many more lives would have been saved.
Yale recently did a study saying over the next X number of years,
It would save like another 500,000 lives.
And so that was a good bill.
If I may, just one sentence.
Diesel fumes are the tobacco of New York City streets today.
Profound.
Profound.
So thank you for that.
Let me just have a sidebar with counsel for a second before I go to the next witness.
I just, that's why I have a council.
Sometimes I have to be counseled, you know.
So, thank you.
Please, the next witness.